If you have more than one operating system installed on your PC for example, you may have both Windows Vista and Windows 7 beta installed – your computer displays a menu asking you which operating system you want to load. If you don’t select an operating system within 30 seconds, it automatically loads your default operating system.

You can cut the amount of time your computer waits for your input before loading Windows Vista by going back to Msconfig and selecting the Boot tab. Where it says Timeout, change the number to a lower setting, but give yourself enough time to actually make your choice. If you only have Windows Vista installed on your machine, you don’t need to complete this step.

Fix notifications

Windows Vista is great at letting you know if there’s a problem with your computer. Your antivirus program should also alert you to potential problems, such as when a virus has been found or if you haven’t downloaded and installed the latest update for the software.

These notifications usually pop up from the notification area when you boot into Windows Vista, and on a computer that’s already struggling, the appearance of such messages could slow down the start-up time even further. You can save a few seconds by making sure that you always read all the notifications and subsequently follow their recommendations to fix the problems.

Not only will this stop the notification from popping up on your screen again, but it will probably also help your computer in other ways.

Change the boot order

When your PC is turned on it searches all its drives, such as hard drives and DVD drives, for boot files to load Windows Vista. These files are always on your primary hard drive, but your PC may search your DVD drives, floppy drives and other places before searching the correct hard drive, and this can add seconds to your startup.

To save time you can change the order that your computer searches your drives, making sure that the drive that Windows Vista is installed on is searched first. To do this you need to enter your computer’s BIOS, which is accessed when your computer is first turned on, before Windows Vista starts.

The method of accessing the BIOS varies from computer to computer – you need to either hold down Delete or sometimes F12. Once inside the BIOS you should see a menu option called something like Advanced BIOS Features. If you have more than one hard drive in your computer, select Hard Disk Boot Priority and select the hard drive that holds Windows Vista.

There should also be a menu option called something like Boot Priority. Select this, and then make sure that Hard Disk is first, followed by CDROM. There may also be an option called Quick Power On Self Test. Select this and make sure it’s enabled. When your PC is first turned on, it runs a number of tests to make sure everything is running properly. Some of these tests are more important than others, and by enabling Quick Power On Self Test your PC skips some of the less important tests, which speeds up your boot times.

Finally, there may be an option called Boot Up Floppy Seek. If you have that option in the BIOS, select it and then disable it. This is a test your computer runs on your floppy disk drive. These are an old form of media, and your PC either won’t have one, or you’ll hardly ever use it, so testing it is unnecessary.

Once you’ve finished in the BIOS choose Save and then Exit. Your computer’s BIOS might be slightly different, so don’t panic if the menus are laid out or named differently to how we’ve said. If in doubt, check the BIOS manual that came with your computer, or on the internet.

Tweak the BIOS to cut start-up time

1 MAIN MENU The main menu of your BIOS should look something like this. Although there are lots of intimidating-sounding options to choose from in this menu, you need only concern yourself with Advanced BIOS Features.

2. SELECTING THE BOOT DEVICE To speed up your computer’s startup, make sure that your first boot device is Hard Disk. Make sure you set your Second Boot Device to CDROM, in case you need to boot from the Windows Vista DVD.

3. SAVE AND EXIT Once you’ve made the changes you want, press Esc to exit the BIOS. You’ll be asked if you want to save your changes. Press Y to save, or N to exit without saving.

Result: Changing settings in the BIOS made the computer load up Windows Vista quicker than before.